Filipino music continues to evolve, and so do the sounds toward which young people gravitate. Spotify Wrapped 2025 reflected the continued strength of Filipino music.
Cup of Joe emerged as the most-streamed local artist, and “Multo” became the most-streamed song in the Philippines. Other songs in the local Top 10 included tracks by Earl Agustin, Dionela, Amiel Sol, HELLMERRY, Arthur Nery, and December Avenue.
The numbers show that Filipino music is deeply embedded in the listening culture. But the local music landscape is not defined by the songs that dominate streaming charts alone. Beyond the biggest names is a wider range of artists experimenting with sounds, genres, and ways of telling their stories.
Alternative music continues to find its audience. Indie rock, pop-rock, punk, shoegaze, and genre-blending acts offer young listeners sounds that may feel less familiar, but perhaps more personal. With music now only a search, recommendation, or shared playlist away, discovering an alternative song can happen almost by accident.
But when thousands of songs compete for attention, what makes a listener stop scrolling, press play, and think, “This song feels like me”?
Underground Wifi
This year, the Philippine alternative music scene is not simply recreating the music of the past. It reflects the experimentation of a new generation alongside the influence of artists who came before them. What once circulated mainly through small venues, local gigs, and word of mouth can now travel far beyond those spaces through digital platforms.
For young Filipinos, discovering music can begin with a swipe. Spotify, YouTube and TikTok allow listeners to encounter artists and genres they may not find in traditional music channels. A song from an independent artist can appear through a recommendation, a short-form video, or a friend’s playlist, making the internet another entry point into the local music scene.
This shift became especially significant during the Covid-19 pandemic, when live venues closed and performances were put on hold. Harrison B. Balderama, a psychology student-writer who has looked into the evolution of Philippine alternative and independent music, describes the period as a catalyst for the local scene, as musicians and listeners turned to streaming platforms and social media to keep music circulating.
With physical spaces temporarily unavailable, the internet became more than a place to listen. It gave artists a way to release music, reach audiences, and maintain connections. The alternative scene did not disappear when the gigs stopped; it found another way to reach people.
That change continues today. Digital platforms have made niche sounds easier to discover, allowing independent artists to reach listeners beyond their immediate communities and audiences to explore music beyond the mainstream.
In other words, the underground did not necessarily disappear. It has a Wi-Fi connection.
Filipino take on alternative
Alternative music may have roots outside the Philippines, but Filipino musicians have never been passive listeners. They have taken influences from rock, punk, shoegaze, indie, and other sounds and reshaped these through their own musical identities.
IV of Spades is one example of this crossover with its blend of funk and rock, paired with a retro aesthetic. Its “Mundo” is the most-streamed song on Spotify: 410.7 million streams as of September. The track also averaged 296,377 daily streams, according to Kworb.
The scene continues to expand through contemporary acts such as One Click Straight, Cheeky Things, MATOKI, and Fitterkarma, whose music explores indie, shoegaze, rock, and genre-blending sounds. Together, they reflect a scene that is constantly changing and not tied to a single formula.
For Filipino artists, global influences do not mean losing local identity. Filipino languages, experiences, relationships, and stories can give familiar sounds a distinctly local meaning. With music from around the world only a few clicks away, the challenge is no longer access. The challenge is what artists do with those influences—and how they make these their own.
Sometimes, Filipino alternative music is simply about taking sounds from everywhere and making these feel like home.
A playlist of identity
Alternative music is often discussed through its artists, but listeners are just as important to the genre. A song becomes part of a culture when people hear it, relate to it, share it, and give it meaning beyond the recording.
For young Filipino listeners, discovering alternative music can mean more than finding new songs. It can introduce them to sounds, stories, and communities beyond the mainstream — and lead them to finding music that feels distinctly their own.
Bellie Canlas, 20, thinks alternative music’s appeal lies in its willingness to explore experiences that are difficult to discuss openly.
“What makes alternative music different is that it doesn’t really try to follow what’s popular,” Bellie tells CoverStory. “It talks about experiences that shouldn’t be brought up in a casual conversation. Even though alternative music has become more mainstream now, I think it still has that sense of being independent.”
Her perspective shows how alternative music can become deeply personal. Songs can accompany important moments, shape difficult emotions, or express what listeners struggle to say. What sounds unconventional to one person can feel familiar to another.
That familiarity can also shape identity. The music young people return to can reflect their emotions, interests, and experiences. For some, listening to alternative music is not about rejecting the mainstream, but finding a sound that feels more personal.
“It also improved my social life,” Bellie says. “When I meet people with the same music taste, it makes me feel like I found my people.”
For Bellie, that shared taste can become a way of finding community. A song passed between friends can become a conversation, a friendship, or a sense of belonging.
The art of the cover
Listeners are only one part of that scene. Behind every song added to a playlist, shared between friends, or played at a gig are musicians who interpret and bring those sounds to life.
On stage, cover bands recreate songs audiences already know, bringing their own voices, energy, and interpretation to music they did not originally write. But for musicians who perform alternative music, covering a song means more than simply memorizing its lyrics and chords. They have to understand its sound and structure, and translate these through their own performance.
For Earl Santillian, lead guitarist of the Antique-based The Undecided, this is particularly evident when the band takes on alternative songs. He describes the genre as one that gives musicians plenty of room to experiment.
“Alternative music is very bendable,” says Earl, 19. “It can be mixed with other genres like rock, OPM, pop, punk. It’s different from other genres because it can be very experimental.”
Earl’s connection to alternative music began as a listener. He discovered the genre by actively searching for local bands and supporting their work.
“I really appreciate the talent of musicians who strive to be mainstream, and I managed to discover this genre of music because I always search up local bands and support them,” he says.
That interest eventually became part of his own experience as a musician. As lead guitarist of a cover-band, he went from seeking out alternative music to learning and performing it himself.
Asked how performing alternative music differs from simply listening to it, Earl cites the complexity that becomes more apparent once a musician has to play it.
“It’s very different,” he says. “If you start playing music like that, you will realize how complex it is as a genre because it has a lot of features, and you can mix it with anything. It really takes skills to play it. Unlike simply listening and just enjoying the music.”
For Earl, performing alternative music reveals details that the audience may not immediately notice. Its combination of different sounds and influences can make a song challenging to recreate, requiring musicians to work through its different elements while still delivering a cohesive performance.
His experience reflects how alternative music can move from something discovered and enjoyed by a listener to something understood and expressed by a musician. Through performing with The Undecided, Earl is no longer only part of the audience discovering local music—he has also become one of the musicians contributing to the scene that first drew his interest.
The good, the bad and the alternative
Alternative music can offer young Filipinos more than entertainment. Its emotional and thematic depth gives listeners space to explore experiences that can be difficult to express directly. Abstract writing, unexpected imagery, and emotionally raw themes can touch on identity, anxiety, alienation, relationships, and social realities, allowing different listeners to find their own meaning in the same song.
For Bellie Canlas, that honesty is part of what makes the genre stand out. “Alternative music’s usually real,” she says. “Lyrics that mean something—not just ‘baby’ and ‘love.’ It speaks to people who feel … different.”
But what makes a song feel honest to one listener can make it difficult for another to embrace. Alternative music’s emotional weight and raw sound can sometimes become too intense.
“Some people think it’s too moody or ‘depressing.’ And yeah, some bands can sound really raw—like they’re screaming at life,” says Bellie. “But not everyone gets that vibe.”
That rawness, however, is also where much of the genre’s creative freedom resides. Without having to follow a fixed formula, musicians can reshape songs through changes in mood, tone, style, and structure.
For Earl, that flexibility is one of alternative music’s biggest advantages. “You can change it whenever you want,” he says. “Experiment with the song, change the mood, its tone, style, in order to achieve a more mainstream sound.”
Yet creative freedom does not always translate into a wider audience. Earl points to the genre’s smaller listener base as a challenge. “There are few people that listen to the genre, which makes it difficult for the musicians creating non-mainstream music,” he says.
This creates a tension at the heart of alternative music: How do artists remain experimental while reaching people beyond the scene? As the genre becomes easier to discover, artists may also grapple with balancing creative freedom with the desire to reach a wider audience.
For listeners, alternative music can offer honesty, emotional release, and a space for experiences that do not fit neatly into mainstream songs. For musicians, it offers the freedom to experiment, even when that freedom comes with the challenge of finding an audience.
Perhaps that tension is part of what keeps alternative music moving. It does not have to sound familiar, please everyone, or fit neatly into one formula. Its value can come from the very things that make it different: the freedom to experiment, the willingness to be raw, and the possibility of finding those who hear themselves in it.
A nation that sings
From karaoke sessions to underground gigs, from songs passed between friends to playlists discovered through a swipe, Filipinos find ways to make music part of their lives. They sing to celebrate, to grieve, to remember — and to express through a song what they by themselves cannot.
Alternative music carries that same spirit, but gives a generation room to sound different. For young Filipinos, it can be more than a genre: It can be a sound that reflects who they are, connects them with others, and gives them space to explore beyond the familiar.
The playlist keeps changing. New artists emerge, old sounds return in new forms, and somewhere between a recommendation, a local gig, and a song shared by a friend, another listener presses play.
In a nation that has always found a reason to sing, being heard sometimes means daring to sound different. CS
Read more: When playing with your heart is all
Nicollete S. Bayaras, 20, a communication student at the National University in Manila, says her engagement with life and philosophy reflects her desire to understand human experiences and relationships and her personal growth.
